The tale of Persinette
The tale goes that there was a girl of Fey/Alf decent. (Fey is a supernatural creature traditionally able to see the future. Another word for fey is fairy.) She was quite lovely, with onyx coloured skin and hair the color of polished gold. She was an orphan, and it's said she was found in a Parsley patch by an older woman as an infant. She was named Persinette because of that. The Foster Mother was called Gothelle, and different variations have described her as everything from a Nyn to a Boreal to an Alf of some years. But whatever the race she is always described as a Mage. Gothelle placed Persinette in a tower with no doors and only one window, where she raised the girl. Depending on the region and the race ascribed to Gothelle her intentions for this can be benign (She wanted to protect her unusual foster child) or malevolent ( She wanted to be imortal and accomplished this by transferring her soul into new young bodies whenever she grew too old and frail). The child, being of Fey parentage, grew ever more lovely as she aged, and was well cared for in the tower. Such that she never though it to be akin to a prison. Her hair was never cut, though Gothelle made sure it was kept clean and brushed. On the eve of her 13th birthday, Persinette's psionic powers began to take shape and she discovered the ability to control her hair. She could change it's shape, it's density and even it's length. She could use it as she would extra limbs and hands. As teenagers will do, she began to sneak out at night. She accomplished this by forming her hair into functional wings and flitting out the window. It was during one of these outings that she met a young Prince (in some versions it's a Princess) who heard her singing and became enamored with her. She showed him where she lived and he began to visit regularly. This continued until one evening when Gothelle came to brush Persinette's hair and discovered that she had a particular kind of illness about her (in the "Princess" variation, a slip of the tongue betrays her to Gothelle). Gothelle is enraged by the tryst and cruelly cuts Persinette's hair off, banishing her from the tower and dooming her to a life wandering the wilderness. Then she uses the cut hair to lure Persinette's lover into the tower where a trap is sprung. She declared that he (or she) would never see the one they love again and cast them out the window of the tower and toward the sharp rocks and thorns below. However, Persinette arrived and saved her love. She had used her control over her hair to will it into growing long again and had then flown on her golden wings back to the tower, where she caught the Prince as he fell toward his doom. She rebuked her Foster Mother for her cruelty (In versions where Gothelle is evil and/or a Boreal, they and the Prince often team up to slay her) and left with her love to marry them and live freely in the castle for the rest of her days. In the version with the Prince, she usually bears him the child she was carrying when Gothelle found them out. And some versions continue the story even after that. The longer tale of Persinette has her taken by a wanderlust common in more free spirited Fey, and abandoning lover and castle and family to explore the world as she had never been able to as a child. In this telling many more adventures of Persinette are recorded and she becomes a legendary figure, aquiring enchanted Armor and a powerful Longspear in her travels. The Fey Caste Persinette hails from is never mentioned, but the description of her skin and her unusual, almost wild card psionic powers suggest that she is a halfling of one of the now extinct Dream Fey. Category:Eifel